


i can’t write a song if it’s not about you

by silverhaechan



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan & Mark Lee Are Best Friends, M/M, Minor Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 05:09:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20285929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhaechan/pseuds/silverhaechan
Summary: In which Mark wants to become a better best friend.





	i can’t write a song if it’s not about you

**Author's Note:**

> i gave mark some of my own traits, the ones i hate, but a better me, because i don’t think mark could be selfish even if he tried. 
> 
> i greatly apologise for this because i wrote it for myself, as a catharsis, but i’m still posting it apparently? 
> 
> morgane i’m confident you will never read this but thank you for making me better as a person and as a friend ♡
> 
> read at ur own risk but i hope you’ll like it!! ʅ（’‿‘）ʃ

When Donghyuck comes back to the dorm, the moon is already high in the starless city sky, and his cheeks are flushed. 

Mark is too focused on that last detail to remember he’s supposed to pretend like Donghyuck isn’t there. Their eyes meet and the smile that was plastered on the younger’s face falls. It’s awkward. Why did he wait up for him? He never used to do that. Never had to, says a little voice in Mark’s head. When you spend every waking second with someone, you don’t have to wait for them to come home from god knows where at midnight. But that was before, a couple of weeks that feel like a whole lifetime ago.

Donghyuck takes a glass of water from the kitchen, and when he walks past the couch where the other is seating, the mask of indifference on his face is so perfect that Mark almost believes his best friend really hasn’t seen him.

He waits another 10 minutes on the couch before going to his room. He’s not sure why he bothers, everyone already knows he was waiting for Donghyuck. 

“He’s back? Did his date go well?” Johnny asks from his bed. 

“He looked happy about it.” Mark forces himself to answer. He too would like to know if the date went well. He doubts Donghyuck would tell him. He’s too busy pretending like Mark has never been part of his life. 

Mark is too busy looking for the way to apologise. He knows he’ll only get one chance. 

It goes a little like that : Mark thinks Donghyuck is the most constant thing in his life. They chose a path that robbed them of a normal childhood. Isolated them from other kids their age for a long time. In a lot of ways, Mark and Donghyuck only have each other. There are the others too, of course, but it’s different. Mark’s not too sure why, it just is. He loves all his members, would take a bullet for every single one, but losing Donghyuck would feel like losing a limb. 

It’s not the healthiest friendship. They fight more than Mark has ever fought with anyone else. They depend on each other too much, expect too much from one another, and it’s okay at the beginning, but it’s something that causes more and more tensions as the years pass.

The thing is, Mark is not good with words. They slip past his mouth when he desperately wants to keep them in, and refuse to come out when he needs them too. It’s infuriating, to be unable to find the words he needs to express himself. He hates himself for it, much prefers words when he can lay them on paper and has time to choose each one with precision. When he needs to say something, he writes. That’s what got him into music after all.

Donghyuck is good with words. Everyone knows it. It’s a simple truth.  _Donghyuck is good with words. The sun rises in the east. _

That’s the way it’s always been between them. And it means one very important thing : if Mark messes up, he doesn’t know how to apologise. Donghyuck would never accept a letter or something Mark wrote and then made himself learn by heart. But those are the only two ways Mark knows. He’s too scared a failed apology would make things worse, so sometimes he doesn’t talk at all. 

The first time it’s really an issue, it turns into a whole summer of Donghyuck giving him the cold shoulder. 

They had been watching a movie together. That was before weeks of tensed silence forced Taeyong to make them switch roommates. Donghyuck would often climb in his bed, and they would watch movies, or Donghyuck would talk and Mark would listen. Sometimes Mark would be the one talking, but the way his tongue struggled to force sentences out would make his cheeks burn with shame in the dark. Other times, he would stop talking right in the middle of a story, with no idea of what he was going to say next, his brain having already jumped onto other things it deemed more important. Donghyuck never said anything, just waited until Mark was ready to start tentatively again.

That specific night (Mark labels it "_The_ _Event_" in his mind),  they were watching The Notebook for the 7th time. Mark fell asleep at some point. Donghyuck had tucked the covers around him when he wakes up. Mark pretended to still be asleep, because Donghyuck was tearing up about something in the movie and probably didn’t want Mark to see him like that. 

Another thing is, if Mark isn’t focused on a task, he forgets he’s doing it. That’s what happens that night. He’s not focused on pretending to sleep. So when Donghyuck’s lips meet his in a gentle peck that he wouldn’t have felt had he really been asleep, his eyes open wide with surprise and his breath catches from shock. 

Donghyuck locks himself in the bathroom for two hours. When he comes back to their room, Mark is ready and focused on his task, and he doesn’t flinch in his fake-sleep when the door opens. 

It takes almost two months for Donghyuck to join Mark in pretending it never happened.

During those two months, Mark often wondered if he was supposed to say something, but the look on Donghyuck’s face as he had pulled back and realised Mark was awake burns in his brain everytime he closes his eyes, and he never wants to see such panic on his best friend’s face ever again. In the end, he manages to convince himself that ignoring it is the best thing to do. 

After that, they’re mostly back to normal, but Donghyuck isn’t as touchy as he used to be. Mark doesn’t really mind. 

Two years have passed since, but this time Mark knows he can’t pretend like ignoring it is the best solution. Donghyuck wouldn’t let it slide a second time, and Mark wants to be better than that, wants to show Donghyuck he’s better than that. 

Mark labeled the new issue “ _The Situation_ ”. 

If he had to say what happened, he’d probably joke and say something along the lines of “Donghyuck and Jaemin kissing isn’t something I ever really wanted to see.”

Maybe saying only “oh”, closing the door and running back to his dorm had not been the best reaction, but he didn’t really know what else to do. 

He was not sure what to do about the jealousy he was feeling. Two years ago he had thought about it, being with Donghyuck like  _that. _He’d thought about it for a long time, wondered if that was maybe the reason he liked Donghyuck more than anyone else. Part of him had wanted to like Donghyuck back. Wouldn’t they be happy together? An even more constant in each other’s life. But he had quickly given up on it : Donghyuck deserved someone who would really love him, because as much as Mark cared about his best friend, he didn’t like boys. 

So isn’t he supposed to be happy that Donghyuck found someone else now? Someone he knows even. For a terrifying second Mark had imagined himself giving Jaemin the shovel talk. He was positive Jaemin would just laugh, tell Donghyuck what had just happened and let the gemini boy stare at Mark in disbelief while saying something along the lines of “Do I look like I needed you to do this?” Mark had smiled at the image. 

He had planned a quick apology the same evening, had even rehearsed it a little. But then he had heard Taeil and Taeyong ask Donghyuck how his date went. It had been stronger than him, apology completely forgotten. Mark had not been that upset in years. 

“So everyone else knew?” 

Taeil and Taeyong had looked at each other and disappeared quickly.

Donghyuck was fuming, Mark could tell by the way his fists were balled and almost shaking on the sides of his body. 

“I don’t owe you anything.” 

Mark doesn’t think anything else Donghyuck could have said to him would have hurt as much as that simple sentence. That’s the thing when you know someone so well, you know just what to say to drive them away

That’s the last time they talked to each other in two weeks.

Mark thinks the past two weeks were the loneliest of his life. 

He spends them reflecting on himself. Regretting what he said, trying to see things from Donghyuck’s perspective, then regretting more. 

He spends most his nights thinking, then most his days too. He hasn’t been corrected that many times during dance practice since he was a trainee. He messes up his lyrics during the rehearsal for their concert.

By the end of the eleventh day, Mark has come to two very important conclusions. The first one is that he’s an idiot, the second one is that he needs to apologise because if they don’t talk this one out then it may not be fixable. And Mark can do a lot of things, but live in a world where he can’t call Donghyuck his best friend isn’t one of them. 

He spends another three days looking for the best way to apologise. He finds the answer the night after waiting for Donghyuck to come back from seeing Jaemin.

The first thing he does is call Jaemin. Jaemin isn’t like Donghyuck, and Mark only has two weeks worth of being an asshole to apologise for, not two years. 

It’s a little awkward at first, but then Mark says “ I think I was scared of him loving someone else more than me. ” and Jaemin softens. He accepts to help him. 

So Mark picks up his guitar and starts writing. About two kids growing up together and words stuck inside him, about boys loving boys and late apologies. 

For the first time since he started writing lyrics, Mark is happy with his words from the start, and even if he does find many things he’d like to be able to write better, he accepts it.

Mark labels the third volume of his weird trilogy “ _The Song_ ” and it goes a little like that : Donghyuck’s confused face when he finds Mark in the training room where he was supposed to meet Jaemin, and Mark’s shaky hands on the guitar. His voice cracking a few times and Donghyuck, not moving from his spot, his hand still on the door handle.

When Mark is done singing the words keep coming to him, so he sets his guitar down and keeps talking. He loses himself in his sentences, starts again, not letting frustration get in the way of what he has to say. Mainly, what he apologises for is forgetting Donghyuck was his own person outside of being Mark’s best friend, and for letting his fear about the person he cared the most about not caring about him as much in return turn his tongue into lead in his mouth.

The words stop coming to him as suddenly as they had started, like a tap you open and close. 

“You said sorry 23 times in 10 minutes.” is the only thing Donghyuck says before hugging him.

It takes a while for them to start anew, with better expectations for one another, healthier habits (like actual  _communication_), and a lot of patience.

Years later, Donghyuck teases Mark about the song during his best man speech. 

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry for this? if you read until the end thank you!!! 
> 
> it would mean the world to me if you left a kudo and a comment with what you thought! 
> 
> i’m @dumbokuto on twitter!


End file.
